Poll: Murray 11 points up on Rossi

A new Research 2000 poll of Washington voters shows Sen. Patty Murray with an 11-point lead over two-time Republican gubernatorial nominee Dino Rossi, who is being courted to run against the three-term Democratic incumbent.

The poll, taken earlier this weeks, has Murray at 52 percent and Rossi at 41 percent.
The senator enjoys a 51-43 lead over Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash., lone GOP congressman from Western Washington.

Research 2000 is an independent polling firm with a record of accuracy in the 2008 presidential race. It has been conducting surveys of hot races around the country for the liberal Dailykos.com Web site.

A recent survey by Moore Insight, the Oregon-based firm that polls for Republicans, had Rossi ahead of Murray by an eyelash. Moore was Rossi’s pollster in the 2004 and 2008 gubernatorial contests. As well, Murray did not run well in a recent Rasmussen Survey.

(Rasmussen is an object of some jest in state political circles. It reported that Tim Eyman’s Initiative 1033 was ahead by 30 points, 61-31, in a poll last October. The measure was defeated 59-41 in the November election.)

Murray has dispatched three Republican congressmen in winning her three terms in Congress’ upper chamber. In 1998, talking heads on “The McLaughlin Group” TV show predicted her demise, only to see the senator defeat Rep. Linda Smith, R-Wash., with 58 percent of the poll.

Murray is running flat out, filling supporters’ e-mail boxes with fund raising appeals warning that she will be targeted in this fall’s election. The latest was sent out hours after Murray watched President Obama sign the health care reform bill in the East Room of the White House.

Rossi has been in Washington, D.C., this week, where he met with National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman Sen. John Cornyn of Texas.

Several lesser-known challengers have struggled to raise their visibility.

Rossi has told fellow reporters that the 2004 and 2008 races gave him $20 million worth of name recognition in the state. He has said that he does not have to make up his mind until late spring.

Reichert has not ruled out the race. But the Republican congressman is working with Murray on a high-profile bill, legislation that would protect the Middle Fork-Snoqualmie River, the closest mountain valley to Seattle, and add 22,000 acres to the existing Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area.